Post Fancy Farm Questions: "What happen to the Democrats? Will they stand and fight in the fall elections?"

Ivan C. Potter, publisher WKJ

August 17, 2016

The Fires of Fancy Farm are cold. Political speaking done. Bingo and family reunions completed.

It's over. The political regional party of the year is now just another page, in Kentucky's stumbling into the future.

Yet, lingering in the shadows of the fires gone to dust and the barbecue pits being put to sleep for another time and year, there is a gut check among the political professionals that something is wrong.

Many things were normal for the event. Heat index around 108 degrees. Homemade and professional signs screaming support "for our side" and distrust to the "other side." Bus loads of Republican paid college students to shout for GOP ticket, as bus loads of union members fought the good battle of being out gunned, out numbered and out holding their own against Mitch McConnell.

The Democrats assumed the position of being General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. They were a token voice against the avalanche of Republican top grade speakers. Senator Rand Paul. Senator Mitch McConnell, Comer, candidate for Congress, and Kentucky Governor Bevin.

The Republicans had a field day with little to no opposition in their political presence from the Kentucky Democratic Party. This was due to the fact that for the first time in 50 years of modern Fancy Farm events, no leadership from Frankfort Democrats dared to show up at Fancy Farm.

The Frankfort top Democrats drove the almost 300 miles down to West Kentucky for the McCracken CountyDemocratic dinner on Thursday night before Fancy Farm and were all in attendance at the annual Marshall County Bean dinner on Friday night.

Bright and early on Saturday morning, these same top Democrats gathered for a Democratic Party Unity breakfast, in the Mayfield High School, a half mile from the Huddle House and some 10 miles from Fancy Farm. By noon, these same Democratic leaders were traveling as fast as possible out of West Kentucky and back to Central Kentucky.

Is this behavior a sign of just how far down the Kentucky Party is? What kind of strategy is total retreat from the first battle of the 2016 Kentucky Political War?

Only Democratic Senatorial candidate Jim Gray showed up to do battle. He stood proudly along side candidates Sam Gaskin of Hopkinsville and Jesse Wright of Mayfield.

Maybe the top leadership of the Kentucky Democratic Party has already given up on trying to hold on to West Kentucky. Maybe their best thinking is to fight an urban war against the Republicans in Central Kentucky. Or is it that their perspective of the world is only defined by winning several seats to save the house? For this they are willing to sacrifice, once again the far regions of Western Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky.

Ignorance of trends in modern politics can be a cruel mistress. We, as a state, as a nation, and as a people living in thousands of local governments are no longer the population of a generation ago or that population of our last Presidential election. The pain from what was done to us in 2008 is still much alive in 2016.

Is this our last chance in 2016, to fix America for the 21st Century or is it the final chapter to be written about the collapse of a great nation, fighting great wars for 16 years and draining resources from the lives of its poor, working poor and those who live in fear of what tomorrow will bring?

In an age of epic national and state politics, do Kentucky Democrats want history to record that this was the year that marked the point in time when they would lose political power for a generation in Frankfort?